Hand-held kitchen tools for the comminuting of foodstuffs and the like are well known in the art. While not limited thereto, the present invention is particularly concerned with the processing of garlic for use as a component in food preparation. This will include the basic steps of decorticating or removing the outer skin or shell to expose the garlic cloves, and the slicing, pulverizing or otherwise comminuting of the cloves.
Earlier forms of garlic tools have generally employed squeeze-type implements wherein, through the manipulation of a pair of hinged arms, a plunger engages within a chamber with a perforated bottom to progressively crush a chamber-received clove with the particle and liquid effluent discharging through the perforated bottom of the chamber. In most instances, a major portion of the clove or cloves will remain within the chamber as a pulverized mass which will normally be discarded.
Another form of garlic tool will be noted in U.S. Pat. No. 6,945,486 B2, issued to Eric Y. Teng on Sep. 20, 2005. This tool, in the principally disclosed embodiment, includes a pair of interesting pressure units respectively having protruding rows of linearly aligned “grater elements” wherein the grater elements of one row alternate with the grater elements of the second row for what the inventor refers to as a peeling, pressing and grating of unpeeled garlic cloves therebetween. The rotation of the pressure units of Teng relative to each other will result in a corresponding rotation of the elements of the opposed rows about a center of rotation toward alignment wherein all of the elements of one row are in intimate alternating alignment with the elements of the other row. Such an arrangement would appear to move an engaged garlic clove radially outward from the center of rotation along the rather blunt and wide engaging faces of the elements. This in turn would tend to encourage the major crushing action to occur toward the outer circumference of the grating chamber wherein outward movement of the garlic will be limited by the peripheral wall. As such, it is likely that substantial force would be required to maintain the desired twisting action between the two hand manipulated pressure units. Should, to the contrary, the actual grating in Teng occur along the full length of the rows, the linear arrangement of both sets of elements will result in a rotational period wherein all of the elements are aligned. This simultaneous alignment of all of the elements of each set alternating with the elements of the other set with an engaged clove therebetween could also tend to produce increased resistance to rotation.
Earlier variations of similar hand-rotating comminuting tools will be noted in Winfield et al, 795,746, issued Jul. 25, 1905; and Ross et al, U.S. Pat. No. 6,637,684 B1, issued Oct. 28, 2003.